Photo by Adam Klawonn

For 20 years, he was a familiar face to hundreds of thousands of Phoenix television viewers. Now it’s his voice that’s known to a growing fan base of folk-music lovers.

Mike Chamberlin, 60, gave up a high-profile gig as morning and noon anchor for KPHO-TV Channel 5 last year to follow his true love: performing the songs he grew up with, such as “Greenback Dollar,” “M.T.A.,” and “Tom Dooley.” 
“I’m glad to be playing folk music. It’s so simple and direct,” Chamberlin says, with a glint of the ardent folk-music champion in his eye. “In folk music, there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s just you and the song. Harmonies in folk music have to be pure.”

As a solo act and as a member of The Arizona Trio, Chamberlin lends his silken baritone and lush guitar notes to traditional folk songs and some originals in retirement homes, senior centers and RV resorts.

“The 55-plus community is an underserved demographic,” he says. “There’s plenty of rock around, and some jazz, but hardly any folk music for people in their 60s and 70s – songs they would remember from their youth.”

Chamberlin performs for music-lovers who recognize names such as the New Christy Minstrels, the Kingston Trio and the Limelighters, groups that spearheaded the folk music movement of the late 1950s and early ’60s. It was a time when a lot of kids picked up their first acoustic guitars and learned the chords to “Lemon Tree” by Peter, Paul and Mary, and “Today” by the Kingston Trio. Mike was one of them.

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Chamberlin recalls paying his dues “in plenty of smoky night clubs.” Musically inclined parents encouraged him, and by the time Mike graduated high school, a record label had signed him to a contract for an undisclosed sum.

Then, as happened to so many Baby Boomers, the Vietnam War and the draft intervened. A tour of duty in the U.S. Army terminated Chamberlin’s contract, and when he returned to civilian life, the clearest route to employment was on radio, spinning the music he had once performed. The world of radio welcomed his mellifluous speaking voice, and before long, TV discovered the trustworthiness of his open, all-American face.   Broadcast news supplanted singing as Chamberlin’s bread-and-butter job, but it never replaced the food for his soul that was music.

“Through 40 years in broadcast, there wasn’t one day I didn’t pick up the guitar,” he says. “Music was always my first love.”

Chamberlin worked at television stations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area before being named primary sports anchor for KTVK-TV Channel 3 in Phoenix in 1988. Fifteen years later, the station made him the main news anchor. In 2006, he moved to KPHO-TV Channel 5 as morning and noon anchor. He was also ESPN’s water sports analyst for 10 years.

It was a good run at the right time in broadcast history, he says.

“My timing was unbelievable,” Chamberlin says. “I got in when they needed broadcasters and got out right on the cusp of when everything disintegrated.”

His salary in the last decade of his TV career was “in the hundreds of thousands,” while the music he made brought him the equivalent of pocket change.  He stayed as long as he could, but when his contact at KPHO was up for renewal, he didn’t even bother to wait for an offer: He knew broadcast salaries had gone through the floor. It was time to live his dream of making music fulltime.
“My greatest claim to broadcast fame is that I never had a day’s unemployment,” Chamberlin says. “There were times I stopped a job on a Friday and started another one on a Monday. But I always worked.”

During the KPHO years, Chamberlin formed a duo with colleague Chris Coraggio. Styled “The Singing TV Guys,” they were together only briefly, but long enough to record a CD still available for sale at Chamberlin’s Website, singingtvguy.com.   Chamberlin continued as a solo act but looked around for a gig that could pair him with other folk musicians. He found one when he auditioned last year to be the third member of The Arizona Trio.

Arizona Trio bassist Gary Kotula recalls Chamberlin’s audition. “He was a natural. He had a wonderful voice and he picked up the songs and fell right in. We knew right away we had our trio.”

All three members of the group – Chamberlin, Kotula and banjo player/guitarist Dave Woodruff – sing in harmony, an important feature of Kingston Trio-era folk music. Kotula calls Chamberlin’s voice “soothing, with a natural vibrato,” adding that his particular tone color “makes the band.”

With the The Arizona Trio now first on his list of priorities, Chamberlin decided to take the big plunge and leave broadcast altogether. His last day on-air was August 10, 2008.

Between gigs with the trio and his solo jobs, Chamberlin says he plays out about 350 times a year. That may sound like he works nearly every day, but some of those jobs are crowded two- and three-a-day sessions during the Christmas holidays.

“November and December are my busiest times,” he says, because private parties vie for time with his usual jobs performing for the senior community. That’s also when Mike brings out his original Christmas song, “The Whisper,” which by dint of hundreds of local performances and some radio exposure has become a Phoenix holiday favorite. His recording of the sweet song is available online.

Chamberlin’s guitar playing is unique, thanks to a sports accident. While playing tennis in 2004, Chamberlin dove for a ball and ended up hitting the hard-court surface with his left hand. When he got up, his left-index finger was bent over his palm.

It couldn’t have been a worse place for a break. The left-index finger is the “money finger” for a guitarist, the No. 1 digit in the business of fingering through chords or solos. After extensive surgery and six months of rehab, Chamberlin discovered his money finger was bankrupt – incapable of doing almost anything except “bar chords,” in which the finger presses all the strings at once.

“I relearned how to play,” Chamberlin says. “I re-fingered everything and taught myself how to play with the other fingers. It shows that if you want to do something enough, you’ll find a way to do it.”

Though most of Chamberlin’s appearances are for private functions, he has been known to play coffee shops, museums and other public places. To find out where to catch him or the Arizona Trio, visit arizonatrio.com and singingtvguy.com.